


We Drink the Blood of Pawns

by Schweigsamkeit



Category: Daredevil (TV), X-Men (Movieverse)
Genre: Angry Erik, Blood and Violence, Charles in a Wheelchair, Charles is a Professor, Crimes & Criminals, Drugs, Gen, Kidnapping
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-07
Updated: 2016-06-08
Packaged: 2018-07-12 20:55:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,460
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7122256
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Schweigsamkeit/pseuds/Schweigsamkeit
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Xavier and Lehnsherr convene—temporarily—to solve a mutual problem. Murdock almost gets himself killed trying to do the same.</p><p>Unfortunately, the Problem seems to be the only one who knows what on God's Green Earth is going on.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This series contains drug use, graphic language, violence, and probably other stuff. You have been warned.
> 
> I also write prose, poetry, and fiction on WordPress, check it out here: https://zauberary.wordpress.com/

Charles will always be thankful that he was the one in the front hall on the seventh of June. He was on his way to the office, after having taken a short break from paying a few bills, when the great lionshead knocker on the equally as great carved oak doors echoed ceremoniously around him. Without a second thought he paused to open it...and there, standing wearily on the front stoop, sunlight pouring down around his stooped shoulders, stood Erik Lehnsherr himself.

Charles could do nothing but stare for several moments. Shock, a particularly taut sensation in the tender hinter regions of his brain, consumed his thoughts more effectively than most amphetamines could have done. What on Earth was he expected to _say_ in this situation, for God's sake? Was he supposed to be _happy?_

 _No,_ his ego growled, _that certainly won't do._ The indignation at the very _thought_ of a cheerful reunion gave his scattered thoughts a common cause, and he collected himself.

"Charles," Erik said, in that quiet but particularly purposeful tone of voice he had, the body of it familiar but also missing a few hues, so that the hearing of it was somehow fuller, sweet like tapwater in the childhood home. Erik did not appear to know what to say next, perhaps because he seemed to be deliriously exhausted. Whatever he'd been up to, he was barely able to keep his feet. "Gott sei dank, you're here..."

"Can I help you?" Charles finally managed, his tone about as dismissive as any human could produce. He missed his legs and his formerly adult stature sorely at that moment, and sat up ramrod straight in his wheelchair, though they both knew his mutation gave him dignity aplenty.

Erik saw the younger man straighten, saw the right half of his nose crick upwards in an attempt at hiding a disgust that now was undoubtedly visceral. "Charles, please, I'm only asking that you hear me out."

The telepath's countenance didn't waver in the slightest. A heavy silence began as a touchy pause and slowly grew to elephantine proportions. "Lehnsherr, I'm shocked you'd have the audacity to ask me anything."

Erik sighed and lifted one heavy hand to rub at his bloodshot eyes. "I swear on my life, this time it wasn't anything I did."

Charles raised his eyebrows. "Oh, well that's a welcome surprise, isn't it? And why does that make it my problem?"

"Because somebody's killing the police, and they all think it's me."

Charles just scoffed. "And why might they think that?"

"Look," Erik said in a short voice, "I understand that you hate me very much. But I thought that perhaps you might be interested in catching the _human_ responsible, who also happens to be rather interested in utilizing your sister as a versatile tactical advantage."

" _What?_ " Charles shouted, quite a bit louder than was strictly necessary, "Is she safe? Why on _earth_ did you leave her alone?!"

Professor Shan Coy Manh, and the seven introductory French students currently engaged in an invigorating group activity in the dining room, all heard Xavier's displeasure and stopped struggling through the dialogue. Their matron made an executive decision and asked them to please continue working while she stepped out for a moment.

"Calm down," Erik hissed at Charles, the unexpected volume of the latter's exclamation driving a nail of electric tension straight between the former's shoulderblades. "She's fine, I sent her to an old place of mine. No one is going to find her. But I am asking you," he spared a glance at Manh, who had arrived in the front hall, "To please assist me in clearing this little problem away."

Charles glared sourly at the shadow of a man stood before him. He had been in such a wonderful mood before, too, with the noontime sun filling the great old manor house with glowing color, and a freshly heated cup of tea warming his right hand. He worked his jaw back and forth in an attempt to control his simmering anger, which did practically nothing to reduce the hatred oozing out of him like pus from a wartime wound.

Manh looked between the two men, then stared at Erik a bit more keenly. She seemed unable to explain to herself where she'd seen the stranger before. Frowning, she glanced over at Charles. "Dr. Xavier, is everything all right?"

Charles stared down at his lap, then lifted his head and offered the woman a smile so cheerfully sarcastic, it could have toasted a daisy. "Yes, Ms. Manh, we're just fine, thank you." His gaze snapped to Erik's, and in a clipped voice he said, "Why don't you come in?"

Erik did so with a sigh of both relief and bone-deep exhaustion. As the door shut behind him, Charles snapped, "And don't you even _think_ about breaking anything."


	2. Chapter 2

"I can't stop thinking about it," Foggy blurted out, as he, Karen, and Matt stood a few feet away from a hot dog vendor on the afternoon of the seventh of June, working their way through four hot dogs (Nelson had ordered two). The city swarmed around them, hot and alive, the odours of thousands of shoes, a kaleidoscope of cultural cuisine, animals, sinking humidity from the trees, exhaust and simmering sewage folding together into a gaseous stew which was mixed constantly by the passage of people and cars. Every inch of him roasting in his dark suit, Foggy shed his jacket and swung it over one shoulder. "We must have impressed her with that whole Punisher debacle."

Matt shrugged, and chewed a bit before allowing himself to answer. "I honestly don't think that Erik Lehnsherr is the person we're looking for, though."

Both Karen and Foggy stared at him with identical expressions of surprise. "What are you _talking_ about?" Foggy asked incredulously; Karen tossed her hair and, in a voice which questioned Matt's intelligence, pointed out what seemed obvious, "Lehnsherr's the _only_ person who could have done this!"

Matt just smiled in a vague sort of way, half his mouth cricking handsomely upwards, exuding that particular attitude of his which invited them to _please, disagree, be my guest!_ "May be, but he's not been in the news much since right around the time Fulbright got killed. And the crime sites have been pretty clean." He pushed his glasses up his nose with the back of his left hand, and peeled the tinfoil and branded paper encasing his lunch back a couple more inches. "I mean why would someone like Lehnsherr need to clean up after himself? He's too belligerent to bother. Besides, he's already been incarcerated for shooting the President."

Karen frowned down at her hot dog as though it had offended her, and ducked her head to take a bite which bordered on vicious. Foggy too had failed to consider that point, and opened his mouth to speak at least twice before he finally settled for repeating the evidence they already had. "Well, yeah, but whoever's doing it is killing people with _metal_ weapons, and they've all been taken from the victims' own homes. Anyone else would surely want to bring their own toys, so to speak."

Matt smiled in acquiescence. "Granted. It's just a thought."

"The killer might be looking to frame Erik Lehnsherr, or something," Karen pointed out. It was a typical consideration of hers, arising from her own first taste of the justice system, but this time it caught Matt's attention in a satisfactory sort of way. "The evidence isn't really that strong, either way."

"It's a thought," Matt repeated genially. "I'd really like to get in touch with one of those superhuman-mutant-people...surely one of them will know Lehnsherr and we'll have more to work with."

"I think one of them might have a school here in New York," Karen mused. "I was reading up on the whole mutant situation, and there's a boarding school upstate that's being advertised as a place for 'gifted' children to stay."

"Can I just say," Foggy said as he finished his first hot dog, "that I think going after a presidential assassin who can kill me with my own ink pen without even flinching is a _terrible_ idea?"

Matt, chewing the last bite of his lunch, balled up the tinfoil and paper and held it out to Foggy. "You don't have to meet him, then. Help me out here?"

Foggy rolled his eyes. "Throw it away yourself, Superman."

"We can't let people see that sort of behavior from a blind man, Foggy." Matt was grinning like a fox, acting as though he couldn't pinpoint exactly where Foggy was standing. "Pretenses must be maintained."

Karen rolled her eyes and snatched the tinfoil ball, disposing of it in the trash can behind her. "Grow up, Foggy, it's two feet away."

Nelson's indignation at such insulting treatment was loud and continuous throughout the rest of the afternoon.

— — — — —

Charles led Erik in through the main hall, turning right along a darkly-panelled corridor which led along the East Wing of the great house. Instead of bringing Lehnsherr back to his office, he chose to conduct the rather untrustworthy visitor into the library. The room was thankfully empty upon their arrival, and out of convenience the telepath settled himself at a small round table which held, of all things, an ornate marble chess set. It was a testament to Erik's exhaustion that he didn't meddle with any of the pieces.

"Now," Charles began, once they were both seated, "explain to me, please, what exactly is the situation here."

Erik shrugged, as dismissive as ever. The attitude, which it seemed he could not help but to exude, grated like coarse sandpaper across Charles' nerves. "Someone's been killing the policemen in New York City—specifically Hell's Kitchen, which...well." He sighed in a long-suffering sort of way. "The police think it's me, for some reason. I haven't given them the chance to explain it to me. I didn't think anything of it, at first, but it's recently gone much too far..."

"Tell me about Raven," Charles prompted impatiently.

"She's fine. We don't speak much, normally. I contacted her when it...got out of hand. I simply told her to leave the city. We met in the park, that was the extent of our contact."

"What precisely do you mean by 'out of hand'?"

Erik frowned down at the chessboard, his iron-gray eyes unusually distant. "I had followed this... _human_ to an apartment above a coffeehouse in a cheaper neighborhood, somewhere the police had expected to find him, nothing unusual. Went in from a rooftop door, spent some time looking around for anything unusual. Well, there was a young man waiting in front of one of the doors on the third floor—perhaps the one the police were there for, I never found out. When he saw me, he jumped and took off for the stairs."

"Well, perhaps he was afraid of you," Charles pointed out shortly, "considering your little display at the White House."

"No, no, he wasn't _terrified,_ he just seemed...uncomfortably surprised to see me there." Erik took a moment to collect his thoughts, perhaps recalling the images of that day, then shook his head to clear away the cobwebs and went on. "Anyway, I assumed he was standing guard, so I left him alone and went in to examine the flat in question."

"And?" Charles couldn't help himself, he was on the edge of his seat...as much as a paraplegic might ever be so situated, that is.

"And the place was a pit of filth, Charles. A topless girl was passed out in the bathroom, there was cocaine in the living room, paraphernalia everywhere, food, garbage, nothing was clean. I was glad I had on shoes and long pants.

"I woke the girl up when I tripped over a box on the floor, and she started calling out for someone named Jamie. Of course I didn't say a word. She asked if Ron had brought 'that freaky naked chick' over yet, I didn't think much of it, but she seemed extremely disoriented, so I asked who? And she said, 'You know, the blue one, the girl he wants to do all his shit for him.'"

Charles' blood ran cold. In a low voice, he asked, "Can you be absolutely sure she was referring to Raven?"

Erik met Xavier's intent blue eyes with his own. "That's what I was wondering. So I asked her why Ron would want a freak like that around? And she called me an idiot and told me it was because the girl would look like Ron, most of the time. You wouldn't be able to tell she was a freak."

Charles was dead silent. Erik let the chill settle into his bones for a moment, then concluded his story. "I left and contacted Raven, and she assured me she would vacate the city, although she neglected to mention where she would go. That was three days ago. I watched the apartment for forty-two hours, from the time I hung up the phone until this morning, but they seemed to have cleared out since my visit. I checked the flat again and it was empty, and naturally the drugs were gone. I drove straight here after that."

Charles took a deep breath through his nose and slowly propped himself up on his forearms, frowning down at his knees. A grandfather clock somewhere in the room chose that moment to elegantly inform them that it was now ten in the morning, but neither man was interested to hear it.

"What would you like me to do, Erik?" Xavier asked quietly.

"Can you find the person responsible for all this?"

"No better than you, I'm afraid." The telepath gesticulated helplessly at the orderly arrangement upon the chessboard. "It would be like searching for a needle in a haystack, and I certainly couldn't hope to search every person in New York City independently. Honestly, can you even be sure that the girl and the police murders are connected?"

Erik nodded. "I have a police radio. There was DNA evidence of some kind."

Charles was of course satisfied by that answer. "And have you heard from Raven since you saw her?"

Erik shook his head. "Like I said, we normally don't speak with each other. I have no way to contact her."

"Well, that is a concern, to be sure." Charles ran a hand through hair which he'd recently managed to wrangle back into some sort of professional appearance. "I suppose I'd better join you in New York."

Lehnsherr braced his hands against the edge of the table, preparing to push his seat back and to stand. "Charles, your help would be greatly appreciated."


End file.
